A Systematic Review of Place-Based Cultural Ecosystem Service Assessments: Categories, Methods, and Research Trends

Abstract

Cultural ecosystem services are intangible benefits people gain from ecosystems that enhance well-being. However, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment indicates that about 70% of cultural ecosystem services are degraded or unsustainably used. To mitigate this decline, many regions and policies promote the assessment and mapping of cultural ecosystem services. Since 2005, related research and publications have increased, yet place-based cultural ecosystem services assessments remain limited. This study aims to clarify key aspects of cultural ecosystem services assessment, including categories, methods, and case study area types. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses method, this study systematically reviewed 163 articles on place-based cultural ecosystem services assessment from Web of Science and Scopus from 2010 to September 2024. The results show diverse ecosystem types, assessment categories, and methods, with urban ecosystems most frequently studied. Fourteen cultural ecosystem service categories were identified based on term definitions and relevance. Non-monetary methods, such as questionnaires and social media data, were most commonly applied. Future research trends will focus on spatial visualization and mapping of supply and demand of cultural ecosystem services, emphasizing public perception. These findings provide planners and decision-makers with more detailed and specific information to better manage, design, and develop regions in a sustainable and culturally sensitive way.

1. Introduction

The term “ecosystem” refers to a system composed of biotic communities and their interactions with the abiotic environment [1]. “Ecosystem services” are defined as “the material and non-material benefits provided by ecosystems that directly or indirectly contribute to human well-being” [2,3]. This concept encompasses natural, semi-natural, and artificial ecosystems [4]. The concept of ecosystem services originated in the early 1960s. However, early scholars used various terms to describe the idea of ecosystem services, such as “environmental services” and “natural services” [5]. It was not until 1997 that Mooney & Ehrlich [6] introduced the term “ecosystem services” in their book Nature’s Services, marking the first appearance of this concept. Since its inception, the concept of ecosystem services has garnered significant attention [7], largely due to the increasing recognition of the unique interactions between humans and nature and their impact on human well-being. In 2000, then United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan called for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), which culminated in 2005 with a landmark report that remains pivotal in the field of ecosystem services research. The MEA report categorized ecosystem services into four types: Supporting Services, Provisioning Services, Regulating Services, and Cultural Services. It explicitly acknowledged the existence of cultural services and provided a simple definition. Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES) are defined as “the non-material benefits people obtain from ecosystems through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, recreation, and aesthetic experiences” [8]. This comprehensive framework facilitates sustainable development and the integrated assessment of the natural and cultural values of landscapes, with a focus on human well-being and informed decision-making.

With the development of CES, its connotations have become increasingly enriched. While the definition provided by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (hereafter referred to as MEA remains widely cited, various organizations and scholars have proposed alternative interpretations of CES. The Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES), developed by the European Environment Agency (EEA), defines CES as “non-material ecosystem outputs with symbolic, cultural, or intellectual significance” [9]. Fish et al. [10] describe CES as “it is about understanding the way people participate in their lives, shaping and reflecting the shared values and history of people, the material and symbolic practices they engage in, and the places where they reside.” Marcinkeviciute & Pranskuniene [11] emphasize that CES should stem from human perception and exist only when individuals perceive their benefits. Despite the variation in definitions, a core understanding emerges: CES are intangible benefits that people can directly experience and intuitively appreciate. This experiential quality makes CES a powerful driver for ecosystem conservation [12].

Since the concept of ecosystem services was introduced, it has held significant importance, with scholarly discussions on the topic continuing to grow. Among the various categories of ecosystem services, CES have garnered increasing attention due to their critical role in human well-being. Within the MEA framework, CES are most explicitly and directly linked to multiple dimensions of human well-being, including health, good social relationships, security, and the basic material for a good life [13,14]. However, data from the MEA report assessing the status of global CES showed that in 2005, about 70% of CES were being degraded or used unsustainably [8], a trend corroborated by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in its 2018 regional assessments [15]. Despite their intangible nature, CES are widely recognized as having a profound impact on human well-being [7]. To address the degradation of CES, numerous regions and policies have advocated for the assessment and mapping of CES [16].

Since the concept of CES first emerged, it has been closely linked with classification and assessment. However, its definitions and categories remain rather ambiguous. The study of CES classification began with Daily [2] and Costanza et al. [3], and later, other scholars also explored and refined the indicators used to classify cultural services [17,18]. After the release of the MEA, research on CES increased significantly. Yet, scholars have not adopted a unified classification framework for CES; instead, they have chosen different classification systems depending on their research objectives and study areas. Some researchers have focused on single categories, with most studies emphasizing recreational services. This is because, compared to other CES categories such as sense of place, inspiration, or spirituality, recreation is more clearly defined and easier to quantify [19]. Although most classifications and perspectives on CES are based on the MEA frameworks, many scholars have also attempted to gather information by investigating public perceptions. Comprehensive information derived from public perception surveys can serve as a foundation for CES assessment [20,21]. For example, Sagie et al. [22] and Fletcher et al. [21] conducted semi-structured interviews and open-ended questionnaires to understand public perceptions of CES in specific regions, and then summarized these findings to develop region-specific CES classifications. In summary, there is still no consensus on the dimensions involved in CES assessment [23], and there remain differences in the terminology used by scholars across various studies [24].

The “assessment” of CES refers to the analysis and review of information to assist those responsible for evaluating potential actions or addressing specific issues. It can also be understood as the synthesis of ecosystem data based on policy-related questions [25]. Building on this, many countries have initiated national ecosystem assessments and developed ecological databases as critical repositories of knowledge for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services [26]. These efforts provide essential guidance and data support for decision-making, ecological planning, and the development of green infrastructure [27]. For the assessment of ecosystem services, the economic valuation method is the mainstream choice. However, CES is usually “intangible” and “non-material”, and is not easy to monetize. For example, in terms of aesthetics, inspiration, and sense of place, Economic valuation methods are considered insufficient because they cannot fully capture the value range of people’s perceived natural meaning [28]. Daniel et al. [29] also pointed out that individuals are not always measured by money when allocating value for cultural services. Economic valuation methods can lead to neglecting social value [30].

Given the subjective and intangible nature of CES, some scholars argue that social-cultural valuation approaches are necessary for CES assessment [31,32]. Consequently, researchers have begun exploring non-monetary methods such as questionnaires [33,34], interviews [35,36] Q methodology [23,37,38], geotagged photographs [39,40,41,42], and Participatory Public Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS) [43,44,45] for CES assessment. At the same time, to address the misalignment between CES assessment results and their application in actual planning and decision-making [46], an increasing number of authors emphasize that map-based CES assessment methods are particularly critical for informing decisions [47,48].

Despite the variety of CES assessment methods, there is no globally consistent methodology. Each assessment is tailored to a specific location and research question, requiring unique classifications, definitions, and methods [49]. Considering that the cultural significance of these services varies by region, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to CES evaluation. Instead, this diversity offers opportunities for adaptability, ensuring that the selected methods resonate with the unique attributes of the services being assessed [50]. However, a common theme emerging from recommendations across broad research perspectives is that CES assessments need to more effectively incorporate the perceived values of the people benefiting from these services [51].

At the same time, CES as a concept has been subject to sustained critical debate within sustainability science. Scholars have questioned the extent to which dominant CES frameworks reflect Western-centric value systems, potentially marginalizing non-Western, Indigenous, or locally embedded ways of relating to nature. Others have raised concerns that CES assessments may inadvertently commodify culture by translating lived experiences, meanings, and identities into discrete service categories or measurable indicators. A further epistemological tension arises between universal classification systems, such as the MEA or CICES, and the inherently place-based and relational nature of cultural meanings. While standardized classifications facilitate comparability and integration into decision-making, they may obscure context-specific values that resist abstraction. These debates underscore the need for greater reflexivity in CES research, particularly in place-based assessments where local meanings and perceptions are central. Against this background, this review examines how CES classifications and assessment methods are applied and adapted in place-based contexts, and what this reveals about the balance between conceptual standardization and contextual sensitivity.

In conclusion, while the importance of CES is widely acknowledged, assessing CES remains fraught with challenges [1,52], leading to insufficient consideration of CES in landscape planning and management [23]. First, the definitions and applications of CES categories vary considerably across different studies, which reduces conceptual clarity and limits the comparability of place-based assessments; therefore, the feasibility and applicability of existing CES classification frameworks need to be re-examined [53]. Second, although a wide range of assessment methods has been proposed, there is still a lack of systematic evaluation and comparison of their relative strengths, limitations, and applicability [54]. Third, CES research exhibits geographical and ecological biases, with many regions and landscape types being under-represented in existing studies [50]. These gaps highlight the need for a comprehensive synthesis of place-based CES categories and assessment methods, as well as an evaluation of research trends, to guide future research directions.

To address these gaps, this study conducts a systematic review of 163 peer-reviewed articles on place-based CES assessments. Rather than providing only a comprehensive overview, the review adopts a place-based perspective to synthesize how CES categories, classification approaches, and assessment methods are applied and adapted across different spatial contexts. Accordingly, the study addresses the following research questions:

• In which regions or spatial contexts have place-based CES been assessed?
• What CES categories are most frequently assessed, and how are these categories classified?
• Which assessment methods are predominantly used, and how do they relate to place characteristics and research objectives?

By integrating these dimensions, this study seeks to reveal systematic patterns and tensions between CES conceptual frameworks and their practical application, thereby contributing to improved comparability and more effective use of CES assessments in planning and decision-making.

2. Materials and Methods

To explore the existing scientific research related to the classification and assessment of place-based CES, we conducted a thorough literature review. The method employed for this review is the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), which follows a set of steps recommended by Liberati, Moher, Harris, and others to examine selected articles [55,56,57,58,59]. The process used in this study is illustrated in Figure 1, comprising four key stages: identification, screening, eligibility, and included. Furthermore, Figure 1 visually presents the number of records identified and included in our study. This visual aid not only guided our material review but also ensured the comprehensiveness of our research reporting.

Figure 1. PRISMA flow diagram. Source: The authors (2025).

2.1. Keywords Search

This study first needed to establish a set of keywords aligned with the research objectives, specifically focusing on the classification and assessment methods of CES. Synonyms for “assessment” include “value,” “evaluate,” and “estimate.” Since each CES assessment involves specific classification issues [50], or the evaluation of a specific category within prior classifications, classification can be considered a prerequisite for assessment. Therefore, at this stage, the term “classification” or “category” was not restricted. The keywords included the concepts of “cultural ecosystem services” and “assessment.” The screening of place-based CES evaluations was conducted in the second stage.

This study used the well-known databases WOS and Scopus to search for the above keywords. The search was limited to articles in English, resulting in 2694 results, including 1449 from WOS and 1245 from Scopus (see Table 1). As mentioned earlier, CES is a relatively “young” research field, so no publication time restrictions were applied. After removing duplicate articles, 1623 articles remained. The latest search was conducted on 13 September 2024.

Table 1. The search strings and results for related topics in the WOS databases.

Search Databases	Search String	Results
WOS	Topic = “Cultural ecosystem service*” AND (valu* OR evaluat* OR assess* OR estimate*)	1449
Scopus	TITLE-ABS-KEY = “Cultural ecosystem service*” AND (valu* OR evaluat* OR assess* OR estimat*)	1245
Search keywords	“Cultural ecosystem services” and “Assessment”

This review was limited to peer-reviewed articles published in English due to feasibility constraints and the dominant use of English in international academic publishing. However, we acknowledge that this language restriction may introduce geographic and epistemic bias, particularly in the field of cultural ecosystem services, where strong research traditions exist in Latin America, East Asia, and parts of Europe, and where relevant studies are often published in local languages.

2.2. Data Collection Process and Article Screening

In the second stage, a comprehensive set of inclusion and exclusion criteria was developed (as shown in Table 2) to facilitate the process of selecting eligible articles. First, the remaining 1623 articles were evaluated based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, resulting in 1315 relevant articles. This study specifically focused on peer-reviewed journal articles to prioritize high-quality publications. Conference papers, book chapters, and similar sources were considered to have a limited impact on advancing the field. Next, the articles were screened in two rounds based on the “topic screening criteria,” and after reviewing the titles and abstracts online, 279 articles that met the criteria were identified. These 279 articles were imported into Zotero 7.0 software for further detailed reading and data management. Articles that could not be accessed in full were excluded. Finally, after reading the full texts in Zotero, 163 articles that were strongly relevant to the topic and considered important for this study were selected. The earliest of these articles was published in 2010. This was not the result of an a priori temporal restriction, rather, it emerged during the screening process, as earlier studies did not meet the inclusion criteria of place-based CES assessment.

Table 2. Exclusion and inclusion criteria.

Screening Criteria		Topic Selection Criteria
inclusion	Exclusion	The focus of the assessment is on CES rather than other categories of ecosystem service.
Journal articles	Duplicate records	Articles involving CES classification and/or assessment are needed.
Peer-reviewed	Review Article, Proceeding Paper and Books	Mainly for place-based classification and/or assessment of CES rather than other aspects (only development of assessment frameworks, contributions, connections, motivations, etc.).
Published in English	Non-English articles	Relevant to the research aim.

After a thorough search and screening process, a total of 163 articles were identified and included in the third stage of the systematic review. Subsequently, a comprehensive reading of the literature was conducted based on the research questions, and key information was extracted and summarized. The information to be extracted included the assessment region, the type of study area, the categories and indicators assessed (if any), the methods of classification and assessment, environmental variables, and the sources of data used in the assessment, among others. The key information was summarized simultaneously in both Zotero and Excel. Zotero allows the records to be linked to the original articles, facilitating subsequent result statistics and analysis. In addition to journal-tier screening, we applied a simple methodological quality checklist to characterize the robustness of the included studies. This checklist was not used to exclude studies, but to provide a transparent overview of methodological heterogeneity across place-based CES assessments. The checklist included the following criteria: (1) clarity of CES conceptualization and classification; (2) transparency of data sources and sampling strategy; (3) appropriateness of assessment methods relative to the study scale; (4) explicit consideration of spatial or place-based context; and (5) clarity of analytical procedures and result interpretation. Each criterion was recorded in a binary or descriptive manner. Simultaneously, journals were grouped into high, medium, and low tiers based on impact factor and reputation. This approach was used as a coarse proxy for study quality. This review followed the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. The completed PRISMA 2020 Checklist is provided in Supplementary Material S1.

For qualitative or descriptive data, this study employed comparative analysis and thematic synthesis to explore potential reasons for differences in results arising from variations in study context, research methods, or sample characteristics. All analyses were conducted in a transparent and traceable manner to help explain differences in CES assessment outcomes across studies. This study charted key characteristics of sources of evidence, including study aims, methods, data sources, CES categories, and major findings. In addition, the certainty of evidence for each outcome was independently assessed by two reviewers. The assessments were compared, and any disagreements were resolved through discussion or, if necessary, by a third reviewer. The full charting table for all 163 included studies is provided in the Supplementary Material S2.

3. Results

3.1. General Observations

Although our search did not impose any restrictions on the publication date, the first article on place-based CES classification and evaluation was published in 2010. This aligns with previous findings by other scholars [50]. This was five years after the release of the MEA project and the formal introduction of the CES concept. Additionally, we observed that academic articles on this topic were still relatively few before 2014, with only 1–2 articles published each year. However, overall, from 2010 to 2024, the number of peer-reviewed articles shows a clear and steady upward trend (note: as the most recent review was conducted in September 2024, articles from the full year of 2024 have not yet been reviewed). This indicates that although the topic is a relatively young research field, scholars’ interest in it is steadily increasing.

Figure 2 shows the source publications of the 163 reviewed articles. Due to space limitations, the pie chart in Figure 3 only includes publications with more than two articles. The most prolific publications are Ecological Indicators (27) and Ecosystem Services (27), together accounting for about one-third of all the articles. Among the 163 included studies, 45.4% were published in high-tier journals (impact factor > 6), 43.6% in medium-tier journals (impact factor 3–6), and 11% in low-tier journals (impact factor < 3).

Figure 2. The number of reviewed papers published per journal. Scheme The authors (2025).

Figure 3. Co-occurrence map related to place-based CES assessment. Source: Authors’ visualization created using VOSviewer version 1.6.20.

Figure 3 presents the co-occurrence of all keywords in this research field. To investigate the research characteristics of this field, the VOSviewer version 1.6.20 was used to create a co-occurrence network. The network was used to analyze the frequently occurring keywords in articles on place-based CES assessments. The co-occurrence map selected keywords that appeared at least four times, and out of 841 keywords, 97 met the threshold. In this step, we excluded keywords such as “cultural ecosystem services,” “ecosystem services,” and “assessment,” or their synonyms, as these terms were already used in the WOS and Scopus database searches. After excluding these terms, we found that the top 10 keywords, ranked by frequency and total link strength (from high to low), are: Management (46); Indicators (38); Perception (36); Framework (34); Landscape (24); Demand (23); Conservation (23); Preferences (21); Recreation (19); Outdoor recreation (18). This figure intuitively shows the research characteristics in this field and indicates that CES is an important concept in land management [19].

3.2. Regional Distribution and Ecosystem Types of CES Assessment

The articles reviewed assessed regions across 40 countries. As shown in Table 3, the majority of the studies were conducted in China (45 articles), followed by the USA (12 articles), Germany (10 articles), and Spain (7 articles). Additionally, 7 articles were conducted at the European. We found that although there are the most articles assessing China, research in this field began relatively late. The first article on place-based CES assessments in China was published in 2017, and the number of studies has continued to rise since then. The earliest assessed region was in Germany, with the article published in 2010.

Table 3. Distribution of CES assessment studies by country/region.

Countries/Regions	Count	Countries/Regions	Count	Countries/Regions	Count
China	45	Japan	5	Morocco	3
USA	12	Italy	4	Turkey	2
Germany	10	South Korea	4	Singapore	2
Spain	7	Lithuania	4	Switzerland	2
Europe	7	Chile	3	France	2
Brazil	6	Netherlands	3	Portugal	2
UK	6	Finland	3	Bangladesh	2
Canada	5	Poland	3

Note: Only countries/regions with at least two articles among the 163 reviewed articles are included in this table.

The place-based CES assessments cover a wide range of scales and ecosystem types. The articles reviewed in this study encompass almost all ecosystem types, including natural ecosystems (such as forests, wetlands, marine areas, etc.) and artificial ecosystems (such as farmlands, cities, parks, etc.). Urban ecosystems, when both large scale city-level studies (n = 31) and studies explicitly focused on urban parks (n = 29) are considered together, account for a total of 60 occurrences in the reviewed literature. Large and medium-scale regions are more commonly assessed, with nearly 77% of the articles focusing on such areas. Detailed data can be found in Table 4.

Table 4. Summary of study area types for CES assessment.

Study Area Types	Count	Study Area Types	Count
Europe landscape	2	Mountain	4
Country landscape	7	Plateau	2
province landscape	9	Forest	10
Marine ecosystems	18	National park	10
Island	8	Grassland	1
Urban 4	31	Cross-regional 1	3
Rural	7	Urban park 2	29
River, lake, and watershed	10	Agricultural landscape 3	9
Desert	3

¹ “Cross-regional” refers to studies such as “between large urban centers and mountain ecosystems” and “rural-urban gradient,” etc.; ² “Urban parks” include urban forest parks (n = 4) and urban wetland parks (n = 6); ³ “Agricultural landscape” is classified based on dominant land-use function rather than spatial scale or urban–rural location, and therefore includes both rural agricultural areas and urban micro-farms; ⁴ “Urban” refer to large-scale assessments conducted at the city or metropolitan level, without an explicit focus on parks. Studies explicitly centered on urban parks are reported separately as “Urban park”.

3.3. CES Categories

This study statistically analyzed the categories of CES assessment and found that scholars use a wide variety of category terms, which are not unified. However, most of them are based on the classification systems of MEA and CICES. Even though the specific category terms used may differ, they can generally be classified into one of these two major classification systems based on their definitions. There are 54 articles that explicitly mention the classification as coming from MEA and/or CICES. The statistics on the specific classification sources are shown in Table 5. Additionally, 44 articles do not involve classification studies but only assess a specific category. The category assessed most frequently is “Recreation,” with a total of 31 articles.

Table 5. Source of CES categories statistics.

Source of CES Categories	Number of Papers Reviewed
Based on MEA/CICES (and combined with others)	54
Based on literature review	18
Based on survey	12
Based on “social value types”	13
Based on crowdsourced data	4
Based on context	3
Based on other organizations	3
Not mentioned (or assess the total CES)	12
No classification required (Assess a single category)	44

Note: MEA = Millennium Ecosystem Assessment; CICES = Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services; CES = Cultural Ecosystem Services.

Table 6 shows the frequency with which each category and similar terms are mentioned in the 163 articles. The 14 CES categories used in this review do not constitute a new classification system. Rather, they represent a consolidation of CES categories derived from existing frameworks, primarily the MEA and CICES, supplemented by recurrent themes identified in the reviewed literature. This consolidation was undertaken solely for the purpose of synthesis and comparison across studies, rather than to propose a new taxonomy. Due to space limitations, many emerging categories that appeared only once and whose definitions are somewhat unclear, and which could not be categorized under MEA or CICES (e.g., freedom, cleanliness, amenity, etc.), are not displayed in Table 6. The statistics reveal that the most frequently evaluated category in the 163 articles is “Recreation and Ecotourism,” which appeared 134 times. This is followed by “Aesthetic Value,” which appeared 115 times. Additionally, some scholars combined two categories into one, and these combined categories were not included in the statistics.

Table 6. CES Categories, Equivalent Terms, and Number of Reviewed Papers.

CES Categories	Equivalent Terms (Conceptually Aligned Based on Definitions and Empirical Use)	No. of Studies
Categories that can be included in MEA
(1) Cultural diversity	(1) Ethnic Diversity; (2) Biodiversity; (3) Biological Diversity.	18
(2) Spiritual and religious values	(1) Spirituality; (2) Religious/spiritual uses; (3) Mental Satisfaction; (4) Spiritual satisfaction/demand/activities/belief; (5) freedom.	66
(3) Knowledge systems	(1) Cognitive development.	12
(4) Educational values	(1) Research; (2) Educational excursions; (3) Environmental education; (4) Learning value.	53
(5) Inspiration	(1) Symbolic meanings/species; (2) Art inspiration; (3) Creativity.	30
(6) Aesthetic values	(1) Aesthetic experiences/appreciation; (2) Landscape aesthetics/appreciation; (2) Scenic quality; (3) Nature appreciation.	115
(7) Social relations	(1) Social interaction/inclusion/cohesion/activities; (2) Interpersonal relationship; (3) Inter-generational.	30
(8) Sense of place	(1) Identification; (2) Special places; (3) Sense of belonging; (4) Environmental character.	32
(9) Cultural heritage	(1) Heritage; (2) Natural heritage; (3) History and/or culture; (4) Historical monuments.	80
(10) Recreation and ecotourism	(1) Ecotourism; (2) Leisure/Outdoor/Physical/Experiential activities; (3) Sport services; (4) Entertainment/representation; (5) Infrastructure/amenity.	134
Categories that can be included in CICES (Other categories overlap with MEA)
(11) Experiential use of plants, animals and land-/seascapes in different environmental	(1) Physical use of landscapes; (2) Nature observation/experience; (3) Wildlife/Species observation; (4) Interactions with nature; (5) Accessibility; (6) Visual range; (5) Naturalist services.	13
(12) Existence	(1) Intrinsic value; (2) Habitat; (3) Simple nature value; (4) Landscape features; (5) Natural structures; (6) Physical environment; (7) Wilderness/pristine areas; (8) wild animals/plants/mushrooms; (9) Native Species.	28
(13) Bequest	(1) Ecological conservation/connectedness; (3) Ecological value; (4) Biological conservation; (5) Environmental concern; (6) Natural awareness; (7) Future.	22
Emerging themes
(14) Health value	(1) Therapeutic; (2) (Health) care; (3) Mental and/or physical health.	29

Equivalent terms were identified through an iterative coding process combining deductive and inductive approaches. First, CES categories were anchored to established frameworks (primarily the MEA and CICES), which provided initial conceptual boundaries. Second, terms used in individual studies were examined in relation to their definitions, indicators, and empirical contexts, rather than by label alone. Terms were considered equivalent when they referred to comparable cultural benefits or human-nature interactions, even if different terminology was used across studies (e.g., “sense of place,” “Identification,” and “Sense of belonging”).

3.4. CES Assessment Methods

This study reviewed articles that cover 8 types of monetary assessment methods and 16 types of non-monetary assessment methods. Two articles only focus on place-based classification without assessment, namely [21,60]. The remaining 161 articles applied/developed different evaluation methods based on varying research contexts, objectives, and issues. The assessment methods (and counts) used by these articles, the corresponding study areas types (and counts), and the corresponding references can be found in Table 7.

Table 7. Summary of CES Assessment Methods and References in Reviewed Papers.

Assessment Method (Count)	Study Area Types (Count)	References in Reviewed Papers
Monetary assessment methods
Travel Cost Method (n = 11)	Country (2); Urban park (2); National park (3); Forest (3); Island	[61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71]
Contingent Valuation Method (n = 5)	Marine; Agricultural; Urban park; Desert; Urban	[72,73,74,75,76]
Hedonic pricing method (n = 1)	Urban	[77]
Land rent method (n = 1)	Urban	[78]
Choice experiment method (n = 1)	Mountain	[79]
Benefit transfer approach (n = 1)	National park	[80]
Mathematical model (n = 1)	Urban park	[81]
Two monetary methods (n = 2)	Marine; Plateau	[74,82]
Non-monetary assessment methods
Questionnaire (n = 28)	Marine (2); Forest (2); Agricultural (3); RLW 4; Urban (8); Urban park (3); Country (2); Rural (2); National park; Province; Island; Mountain; Desert	[28,33,34,52,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103,104,105,106]
Interviews (n = 9)	Agricultural; RLW; Urban park; National park (2); Rural; Marine (2); Desert	[14,35,36,53,107,108,109,110,111]
Q methodology (n = 3)	Marine; Agricultural; Rural	[23,37,38]
PPGIS 1 (n = 16)	Urban park (5); Urban (6); Marine; Country; Cross-regional; Forest; Island	[31,43,44,45,48,112,113,114,115,116,117,118,119,120,121,122]
Recreation opportunity spectrum (n = 3)	Europe; Urban (2)	[123,124,125]
Indicator-based (n = 5)	RLW 4 (2); Country; Province; Island	[126,127,128,129,130]
Visitor-employed photography (n = 1)	Urban park	[131]
Documents (n = 1)	Urban park	[132]
Social media-based (n = 25)	Europe; National park (2); RLW 4 (3); Province (4); Agricultural; Urban park (4); Marine (4); Island; Urban (3); Forest; Rural	[16,20,24,39,40,42,110,133,134,135,136,137,138,139,140,141,142,143,144,145,146,147,148,149,150]
Own designed methods (n = 2)	Province; Cross-regional	[4,151]
Model assessment methods
SolVES 2 (n = 19)	Forest (3); Island (2); Mountain; Urban park (6); Marine (1); RLW 4 (2); Urban (2); Agricultural; Rural	[51,152,153,154,155,156,157,158,159,160,161,162,163,164,165,166,167,168,169]
MaxEnt 3 (n = 5)	Agricultural; Urban; National park; Province; Country	[1,170,171,172,173]
InVEST (n = 2)	Marine (2)	[174,175]
Bayesian belief networks (n = 1)	Urban	[176]
Integrated methods
Integrates non-monetary and monetary (n = 5)	Urban park (2); Urban; RLW 4; Province	[89,177,178,179,180]
Integrated methods for assessing supply and demand (n = 13)	Island; Mountain; Rural; Plateau; Urban (3); Marine (2); Grassland; Cross-regional; Urban park (2)	[181,182,183,184,185,186,187,188,189,190,191,192,193]

¹ PPGIS = Public participation geographic information system; ² SolVES = Social Values for Ecosystem Services; ³ MaxEnt = Maximum Entropy model; ⁴ RLW = River, lake, and watershed.

Among the monetary assessment methods, the travel cost method was the most commonly applied. In terms of non-monetary methods, questionnaire surveys and social media-based methods were the most popular. A total of 28 articles used questionnaire-based assessment methods, while 25 articles employed social media-based methods. Overall, non-monetary assessment methods were notably more popular among scholars and demonstrated greater diversity, with 138 articles using non-monetary methods.

The alluvial diagram in Figure 4 illustrates the correlations between the classification dimensions represented as flows, visually linking assessment methods with study area types. Each rectangle in the alluvial diagram represents a unique value within the selected dimension, with the height of the rectangle proportional to its value. Correlations are depicted by curves, with the width of the curve proportional to its value. From this, it can be observed that the number of evaluations using questionnaire-based methods and PPGIS to assess urban CES, as well as the use of the SolVES model to assess urban parks, is relatively high.

Figure 4. The correlation between CES assessment methods and study area types. Scheme The authors (2025).

The data used for CES evaluation primarily consists of two parts: perception data and/or environmental data. It is worth noting that the methods of data acquisition for evaluation are highly diverse. Regarding perception data, in addition to the conventional survey method, social media data has shown a clear trend of popularity. In the 163 reviewed articles, 43 articles used social media images or text as a source of perception data for evaluation. Notably, geotagged photos accounted for 30 of these. The emergence of social media data has created more convenient ways to evaluate CES. Many articles combine both perception data and environmental data for assessment.

4. Discussion

This review conducted extensive research on the classification and assessment of place-based CES. Overall, this is a relatively new field, but the number of publications in this field continues to grow. There are two main reasons for this. First, the widespread environmental degradation issues have sparked interest in researching cross-cultural and biophysical contexts [157], with the aim of gaining a more comprehensive understanding of the complex relationship between humans and nature. Second, this growth is related to several global initiatives [50], such as MEA, CICES, TEEB, and IPBES, among others. These organizations and intergovernmental platforms are conducting research on ES/CES, attracting many participants. Scholars are also continuously expanding the field in an effort to contribute to enhancing human well-being. Based on the results, this study will discuss the following aspects:

4.1. Systematic Mismatches Between CES Classification and Application

From the classification results presented earlier, it can be seen that, to date, there is no consensus on the categories of CES [23]. Moreover, there is considerable variation in the terminology used by scholars in the articles [24]. Some scholars have not mentioned the classification of CES and have directly conducted monetary assessments of CES [78,82]. Some have even implicitly equated entertainment CES with CES in their studies [72,73,176]. Additionally, some scholars focus on a single category, and these studies still predominantly concentrate on the assessment of recreation [61,63,65,67,68,99,114,125,127,128,142,174,178,184,187]. This is because, compared to other categories such as sense of place, inspiration, spirituality, etc., the definition of entertainment CES is clearer and its quantification is simpler [19]. For example, Allan et al. [126], in their assessment of entertainment CES, used directly quantifiable indicators such as fishing, boating, and birding. However, we cannot deny that evaluating only a single or entertainment category does not capture the full scope of CES, nor does it contribute to the development of CES. In most cases, CES classification remains a prerequisite for assessment.

Although the majority of articles still rely on or are based on the MEA classification for assessments, many scholars believe it has issues [74,149,194]. For example, as mentioned earlier, there are issues such as category overlap [74] and unclear terminology [37,149]. As a result, some scholars have started to adjust the classification of CES. Some have merged two categories from the MEA into one. The main examples include: (1) merging “spiritual and religious values” and “Inspiration” into “Spiritual/religious inspiration” [89,116,182]; (2) merging “knowledge systems” and “educational values” into “Education and knowledge” [23,36,71,117,121,168]; (3) merging “cultural heritage values” and “sense of place” into “cultural heritage and identity” [21,89,171]. Other scholars have split a single category into two. For example, Gajardo et al. [107] separated “sense of place” and “Identity” into two categories; Guo et al. [195] assessed wetland parks using both the “recreation and ecotourism” and “sports values” categories. But in fact, they belong to the same category under the MEA classification system.

Currently, some scholars obtain classification information for CES through methods such as questionnaire surveys [33,112] and interviews [20,35,108]. Some have even obtained information about CES by recognizing images on social media [80,138,139]. However, this method seems unsuitable for widespread adoption because it does not truly address people’s perceptual preferences. For instance, Huai et al. [139] identified photos featuring water bodies and landscapes as belonging to the aesthetic category, while photos with sculptures and buildings were categorized as “sense of place (and identity).” Clearly, this approach is overly mechanized. One of the reasons MEA developed the CES categories was to emphasize the importance of cultural and social values in landscape planning and management [14]. Identifying people’s perceptual preferences for CES can also assist in landscape planning and management decisions [31]. Since MEA’s classification is based on the forest typology of values developed by Brown & Reed [120,196], many subsequent scholars have directly used this value typology to study CES [28,153,161,164]. In short, when studying CES, whether certain categories overlap or whether there are redundant categories in the existing classification needs further evaluation [53]. In the future, it is necessary to redefine the classification of CES based on different study sites and to describe the connotations of each category.

The coexistence of MEA-based, CICES-based, perception-derived, and context- specific CES classifications raises a fundamental conceptual question: whether the observed diversity reflects legitimate contextual adaptation or persistent conceptual instability in CES research. Our review suggests that both dynamics are simultaneously at play. On the one hand, context-sensitive adaptations, particularly those derived from stakeholder perceptions, can be theoretically justified, as CES are inherently relational and place-dependent. On the other hand, many empirical studies introduce ad hoc category modifications, mergers, or re-labelling driven primarily by data availability or methodological convenience rather than conceptual reasoning. This practice contributes to category overlap, blurred boundaries between CES dimensions, and ambiguity regarding what constitutes a distinct service versus an outcome or co-benefit. Such conceptual inconsistency has important implications. It constrains cross-case comparison, undermines cumulative knowledge building, and complicates the integration of CES assessments into broader ecosystem service frameworks and policy processes. Without greater transparency and reflexivity in classification choices, the growing diversity of CES categories risks reinforcing fragmentation rather than advancing theoretical coherence. Rather than advocating for a single universal classification, this review highlights the need for clearer justification of classification decisions and explicit discussion of their trade-offs. Balancing contextual flexibility with conceptual clarity is essential for strengthening the scientific robustness and policy relevance of place-based CES assessments.

Overall, an important contribution of this review is the identification of systematic mismatches between CES classification frameworks and their empirical application. Although most studies nominally adopt established frameworks such as the MEA or CICES, their implementation in place-based assessments is highly heterogeneous. CES categories are frequently merged, subdivided, selectively applied, or replaced by proxy indicators driven by data availability and methodological convenience. Recreation-related services, in particular, dominate empirical assessments due to their relative ease of quantification, while more abstract dimensions such as sense of place, inspiration, or spiritual values are often underrepresented or simplified. This mismatch between conceptual classification and operational practice has significant implications. It limits comparability across studies, obscures trade-offs among different CES, and may lead to policy-relevant decisions being informed by a narrow subset of cultural values. Recognizing this structural gap is essential for improving both the theoretical coherence and practical usefulness of place-based CES assessments.

4.2. Reframing CES Through a Place-Based Lens

In the review results, urban areas are the most frequently assessed regions, for examples [75,114,115,119,120,124,163,165,167,170,176]. This is because urbanization has led to ecological degradation in urban areas, which negatively impacts the supply of CES [94]. Therefore, enhancing the quality and diversity of urban CES is crucial [197]. One approach is to cultivate more attractive green spaces for residents to benefit from, creating sustainable and resilient urban high-quality living, thereby promoting the well-being of residents [122]. At the same time, due to the scarcity of CES resources in urban areas, they have become more important for decision-makers [60]. In conclusion, understanding, considering, and evaluating urban ecosystem services is essential for managing a well-functioning environment to maintain sustainable cities [4,48,60,187,197].

A key insight emerging from this review is that “place-based” CES assessment is not merely a matter of spatial scale or mapping resolution, but fundamentally concerns how cultural meanings, perceptions, and social values are embedded in specific contexts. While many studies label their assessments as place-based, in practice, place is often reduced to a spatial container within which CES indicators are quantified. Our synthesis suggests that a genuinely place-based approach requires explicit attention to how CES are co-produced through interactions between people and their environments, including local histories, cultural practices, accessibility, and experiential qualities. Studies that rely solely on standardized indicators or transferable models risk overlooking these contextual dimensions, even when spatial visualization tools such as GIS are employed. By reframing CES assessment through a place-based lens, this review highlights the need to move beyond spatial representation alone and toward assessments that explicitly incorporate contextualized human perception. This reframing helps explain why CES assessments that appear methodologically robust may still have limited relevance for local planning and decision-making.

4.3. Methodological Shifts and Their Implications for Place-Based CES Assessment

Beyond documenting an increasing diversity of assessment techniques, this review reveals that methodological shifts in place-based CES research have fundamentally influenced how cultural values are conceptualized, measured, and communicated. The growing preference for non-monetary approaches, the integration of social media data, and the rise of spatially explicit supply-demand assessments reflect not only technical innovation, but also a broader reorientation toward perception-based and context-sensitive understandings of CES.

As research on CES continues to attract increasing attention from scholars, the methods for evaluating CES have also become more diverse [54]. From the previous research results, it is clear that the number of articles using non-monetary assessment methods to assess place-based CES far exceeds those using monetary assessment. This supports the view that non-monetary evaluation methods are more suitable for CES [28,74,96,198]. Non-monetary assessments can explain the value of CES from perspectives such as importance classification and respondents’ views and preferences [156]. Additionally, with the development of the internet, social media data (text, images, etc.) has become a key source for obtaining CES preference data. Compared to traditional surveys, social media data is easier to collect and has a vast amount of information, providing new ideas for the quantitative study of CES [199]. However, it is difficult to use for perception data in small-scale regions and is mostly applicable to large-scale areas or as complementary data [200].

Method selection is closely tied to epistemological assumptions, data availability, spatial scale, and intended decision contexts. Non-monetary methods such as surveys and interviews are well suited to capturing place-specific perceptions and meanings, but their reliance on primary data collection often constrains their application to small or medium spatial scales. In contrast, model-based and social media–based approaches tend to dominate assessments at larger spatial scales, where direct engagement with users becomes impractical. While these methods enable spatially explicit analysis and cross-case comparison, they often prioritize observable behavior or proxy indicators over experiential dimensions of CES. Social media–based methods, in particular, raise unresolved challenges related to representativeness, demographic and cultural bias, and the interpretability of expressed preferences. As a result, their applicability to place-based CES assessment remains context-dependent and is best understood as complementary rather than substitutive to participatory approaches. Integrated assessment frameworks attempt to bridge these trade-offs by combining multiple data sources and methods, yet they also introduce additional complexity and transparency challenges. Recognizing how methodological choices interact with scale, ecosystem type, and decision objectives is therefore essential for selecting appropriate CES assessment approaches and for interpreting their results responsibly.

Our review shows that 93 articles have combined GIS spatial visualization tools. This indicates that more and more scholars are quantifying the spatial distribution of CES. This can help urban planners improve urban green infrastructure more clearly [48], and is crucial for incorporating these services into policies and planning [19]. Additionally, we observed a significant increase in articles assessing the supply and demand of CES over the past five years, with a total of 18 articles. The first such article appeared in 2019, providing support for the sustainable development of agritourism and the scientific protection of farmland resources through a detailed assessment of the farmland CES chain (supply, demand, and flow) [172]. Since then, the number of such studies has increased annually, with the following distribution: two articles in 2020 [103,158], three in 2021 [133,170,187], four in 2022 [176,182,184,192], five in 2023 [94,128,183,185,193], and three in 2024 [186,189,190]. (Note: the present review covers studies published up to September 2024.) Although articles assessing supply and demand have only emerged in recent years, their overall number has grown and shows an increasing trend. This growth indicates that assessing CES supply and demand has gradually become a new research focus in recent years. These articles assessing supply and demand are characterized by using different methods to evaluate the supply and demand of place-based CES separately and presenting the results in spatial visualization form. This allows decision-makers to clearly identify situations of CES supply-demand matching or mismatching. This approach not only provides planners and decision-makers with a practical tool for identifying spatial mismatches and priority intervention areas, thereby supporting a more equitable and culturally responsive allocation of ecological and recreational resources, but also helps translate CES evidence into operational planning guidance by linking public perceptions, environmental characteristics, and management objectives within a single analytical framework, thus promoting more sustainable and environmentally sensitive regional development. Some scholars have pointed out that the balance of supply and demand in ecosystems is the ultimate goal of ecosystem management [176]. However, there is considerable inconsistency in the supply and demand indicators in the reviewed articles. For instance, while most scholars use accessibility as a supply indicator, some also note that accessibility affects the demand for CES [193]. Therefore, appropriate supply and demand indicators are key to CES supply-demand assessments.

Our review reveals that research trends in place-based CES assessments are primarily focused on CES spatial visualization [31,48,168] and spatial mapping of supply and demand [94,186,190]. The aim is to provide decision-makers and planners with more refined and specific information to better manage, plan, and develop a given site [94,185]. In summary, as values co-produced by humans, CES assessments should always take into account “the observer’s mind” and their interactions with the biophysical environment [117].

4.4. Unresolved Theoretical Tensions and Implications for Policy Uptake

The review further reveals unresolved theoretical tensions that continue to shape place-based CES research. One major tension lies between the desire for standardized classifications that enable comparability and the need for context-specific adaptations that reflect local meanings and values. While flexibility is often presented as a strength of CES assessment, excessive customization can undermine cumulative knowledge building. A second tension concerns the balance between methodological operability and conceptual completeness. Methods that are readily quantifiable and scalable tend to prioritize certain CES categories, inadvertently reshaping the conceptual understanding of CES itself. In this sense, methods do not merely measure CES but actively participate in defining what counts as a cultural ecosystem service. These tensions help explain why CES assessments, despite their growing sophistication, often struggle to achieve policy uptake. Addressing them requires greater transparency in classification choices, clearer justification of methodological trade-offs, and stronger alignment between assessment objectives and decision-making contexts.

However, it should be noted that the included studies have several limitations. First, most were cross-sectional in design, making it difficult to establish causal relationships. Second, sample sizes and study coverage were often limited, potentially affecting the representativeness of the findings. Third, substantial variation existed in CES categories and assessment methods, reducing comparability across studies. In addition, some studies lacked detailed reporting of methods or data, increasing uncertainty in data extraction. Given these limitations, future research should adopt longitudinal or intervention designs, expand sample and spatial coverage, and improve the standardization of methods and indicators to enhance the comparability and reliability of the evidence.

There are some limitations in the review process itself. First, only peer-reviewed journal articles were included, potentially excluding grey literature or unpublished studies and introducing potential publication bias. Second, data extraction was based primarily on information reported in the publications, and incomplete reporting in some studies may have led to missing or uncertain information. In addition, the English-only literature selection may affect the representativeness of the global patterns identified in this review. CES research published in local languages often emphasizes context-specific cultural practices, Indigenous knowledge, and locally grounded valuation approaches, which may be underrepresented in English-language journals. As a result, some regional perspectives and methodological innovations may not be fully captured, potentially reinforcing Western-centric framings of CES and influencing observed trends in categories, methods, and study regions. Future reviews could benefit from multilingual or regionally focused syntheses to complement global-scale analyses and provide a more inclusive understanding of place-based CES assessments. Finally, Although journal tier was used as an initial quality proxy, we recognize that this alone cannot fully capture methodological robustness, particularly given the heterogeneity of CES assessment approaches. To address this, we supplemented journal-tier screening with a simple methodological quality checklist, which allowed us to transparently characterize key aspects of study design and analytical clarity across the reviewed literature. Nevertheless, our synthesis remains primarily descriptive rather than evaluative, and future reviews could benefit from more formalized quality appraisal frameworks as CES methodologies continue to mature.

Despite the growing volume of place-based CES assessments, this review identifies several persistent gaps in the literature. Conceptually, many studies adopt standardized CES categories without critically reflecting on their suitability for capturing context-specific meanings, leading to ambiguities in classification and limited comparability across cases. Methodologically, CES assessments often underrepresent the granularity of lived experiences, social differentiation among user groups, and temporal dynamics of cultural values. In addition, mismatches between CES classification frameworks and their empirical application continue to constrain policy relevance. Future research would benefit from greater reflexivity in category selection, clearer alignment between conceptual frameworks and assessment methods, and stronger integration of qualitative insights with spatial and quantitative approaches. Such efforts are essential for advancing CES assessments that are both context-sensitive and decision-relevant.

From an academic perspective, this study advances the understanding of place-based CES assessments by systematically synthesizing categories, methods, and research trends, highlighting key gaps and emerging directions.

5. Conclusions

In the course of this systematic review, we thoroughly examined 163 articles on place-based CES evaluations published from 2010 to September 2024. We summarized the regional characteristics of the evaluations, the categories, and the methods used for classification and assessment. Since these aspects are closely related to CES evaluation, clarifying them will contribute to advancing future assessments of place-based CES. The main conclusions we draw are as follows:

• The locations assessed in these articles cover a variety of ecosystem types, with a particular focus on urban areas. However, there is no specialized category or indicator specifically for urban areas. Similarly, there is still a lack of targeted investigation and differentiation when assessing marine, rural, forest, agricultural and other ecosystems. This suggests that the application of CES categories across different ecosystems has not been effectively differentiated or explored. Moreover, the majority of studies assess large-scale regions. While some urban CES studies are already conducted at relatively fine spatial scales, such as parks or neighborhoods, future research should place greater emphasis on the experiential granularity of CES assessments. This includes capturing variations in perception, meaning, and use within places, rather than simply further subdividing spatial units. Because it can translate assessment results into concrete planning and design references, provide clearer guidance for enhancing culturally oriented areas, and contribute to evidence-based management decisions.
• There are 14 main categories for place-based CES evaluations. Of these, 13 can be categorized under the MEA/CICES classification system. They are: (1) Cultural diversity; (2) Spiritual and religious values; (3) Knowledge systems; (4) Educational values; (5) Inspiration; (6) Aesthetic values; (7) Social relations; (8) Sense of place; (9) Cultural heritage; (10) Recreation and ecotourism; (11) Experiential use of plants, animals, and land-/seascapes in different environments; (12) Existence; (13) Bequest. One emerging category is (14) Health value, indicating a growing awareness of the beneficial effects of natural ecosystems on human health and physical recovery. The specific categories to assess should be determined based on the site’s actual conditions and stakeholder surveys. The categories assessed need to be comprehensive, rather than focusing on a single one, and efforts should be made to promote a combination of standardization and localization of the CES classification system. High-quality CES classifications and indicators will aid in planning and decision-making for a given area [7], as they are important indicators for subsequent CES assessments.
• We also conducted an extensive review of assessment methods, which can be categorized into four main types: Monetary assessment methods, non-monetary assessment methods, Model assessment methods, and Integrated methods. We summarized the assessment methods used in each article. The conclusion is that most studies used non-monetary methods to assess place-based CES, often combined with GIS spatial visualization tools. Articles assessing CES supply-demand have become more frequent in recent years. Future assessments of place-based CES will likely combine supply-demand assessment and spatial visualization, providing clearer support for decision-makers and planners. This approach not only provides planners and decision-makers with a practical tool for identifying spatial mismatches and priority intervention areas, thereby supporting a more equitable and culturally responsive allocation of ecological and recreational resources, but also helps translate CES evidence into operational planning guidance by linking public perceptions, environmental characteristics, and management objectives within a single analytical framework, thus promoting more sustainable and environmentally sensitive regional development.

Based on our in-depth investigation, this study argues that CES evaluations should not only consider environmental characteristics, classification indicators, and assessment methods but also take into account public perception and demand. Furthermore, the results should be incorporated into landscape planning and policy-making through spatial visualization, ensuring that the outcomes truly serve the site and enhance public well-being. Finally, we hope that this research will serve as a reference for future CES evaluations, helping to select appropriate categories and methods for place-based CES assessments.